Fresh from ending a month-long hiatus with a straight-sets win, British number one Jack Draper continues his quest for Qatar Open glory against Australia's Christopher O'Connell in Wednesday's second-round match.
Draper saw off O'Connell's compatriot Alexei Popyrin in round one, while his 30-year-old foe took down Lebanon trailblazer Hady Habib in straight sets.
Match preview
Largely exorcising his injury demons last year as he became the new poster boy of British tennis, fitness problems have already begun to rear their ugly heads for Draper again in 2025, as Monday's battle with Popyrin marked his first match in a month.
The world number 16 had previously been forced to call it quits against Carlos Alcaraz in the fourth round of the Australian Open due to a niggling hip problem, one that also scuppered his chances of representing Great Britain in their Davis Cup qualifying loss to Japan.
However, Draper looked like his usual athletic and big-hitting self against Popyrin, who pushed the British number one all the way in the second set but was left to lament a wasted set point as Draper prevailed 6-2 7-6[4] with one hour and 24 minutes on the board.
In fact, that one set point on the Draper serve was the only break opportunity that the 23-year-old faced in the first-round tie, where he also fired eight aces past Popyrin and committed just 16 unforced errors compared to 28 for his Australian foe.
Some exemplary returns on his forehand side in particular saw Draper limit Popyrin to just four aces in his straight-sets triumph, as the 23-year-old won a match in straight sets for the first time in 2025; all three of his full matches at the Australian Open went the distance.
Out to avenge his fallen Australian counterpart, O'Connell had to navigate the qualifying rounds just to earn a ticket to the tournament proper, firstly coming from a set down to eliminate Yosuke Watanuki before a more straightforward success over Pavel Kotov.
First up in the main draw for O'Connell was Habib, who in Melbourne became the first-ever Lebanese player to win a main-draw match at a Grand Slam tournament, but O'Connell ensured that he would not replicate that feat in Doha thanks to two gutsy tie-breakers.
The world number 82 took nearly two hours to come through 7-6[7] 7-6[3], having run into stiff resistance against a player who beat away four of the five break points that the Australian managed to fashion, and he even had to come from a mini-break down in the second-set tie-breaker to succeed.
O'Connell's gritty round-one triumph marked just a second ATP Tour main-draw win of 2025 for the 30-year-old, who went out at the first hurdle in both Melbourne and Brisbane either side of a second-round exit at the Adelaide International last month.
A 15-time champion on the ATP Challenger and ITF Tour circuit, O'Connell is yet to even reach a championship match at the highest level, so the cards are stacked against the Australian as he vies for a potential third-round showdown with Novak Djokovic.
Tournament so far
Christopher O'Connell:
First round: vs. Hady Habib 7-6[7] 7-6[3]
Jack Draper:
First round: vs. Alexei Popyrin 6-2 7-6[4]
Head To Head
Indian Wells Masters (2024) - First round: O'Connell wins 1-6 6-3 6-2
Draper and O'Connell have only collided on one previous occasion on the ATP Tour, as their inaugural meeting took place at last year's Indian Wells Masters, but it was not a happy occasion for the Brit.
Despite dropping just one game in the first set, Draper fell victim to an O'Connell comeback as the Australian progressed with a 1-6 6-3 6-2 victory, saving eight of the 11 break points that he faced on the day.
Before both men became established on the ATP Tour, O'Connell also conquered his younger foe in a 2019 Challenger event in Fairfield, winning 6-2 6-3 in the quarter-finals and eventually taking home the trophy.
We say: Draper to win in two sets
Draper's recent lack of match practice did not hinder him too much against Popyrin, where his ferocious hitting and strong net coverage came to the fore, and he was arguably fizzing forehands across the court with more venom than ever before.
O'Connell might have already got the better of Draper twice in previous competitions, but the Australian will surely suffer the same fate as Popyrin did on Wednesday, as the British number one surges into round three in Doha.
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